Vehicle owners whose cars were registered before 2023 will be required to pay a fee of GH¢25 to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) to have their records digitised, according to Prosper Kafui Semevo, Director of Driver Training, Testing, and Licensing. Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, January 13, 2026, Mr. Semevo explained that the onboarding exercise is intended to verify the ownership of vehicles previously registered manually and to eliminate uncustomed vehicles from the system.
He noted that the process will require owners to physically present their vehicles, registration documents, customs declaration forms, and Ghana Card at DVLA offices or designated centers for biometric verification He has therefore urged vehicle owners who are yet to be onboarded onto its digital platform to do so to be able to obtain a title certificate and electronic registration card, which would be a requirement when the new licence plate policy is rolled out.
Mr. Semevo explained that customers will be required to pay a fee of GH¢25 for the verification of their biodata. “We urge all vehicle owners to visit our offices and complete the onboarding process. Without onboarding, you will not be eligible for a title certificate or electronic card once the new license plate policy takes effect, and this means you cannot register your vehicle. Furthermore, failure to comply constitutes a violation of road traffic law and will attract legal consequences,” he cautioned.
He clarified, however, that vehicles registered between January 2022 and December 2023 are not yet included in the exercise. “Owners of such vehicles should wait until they are officially directed to undergo the process,” Mr. Semevo added Last week the Director of Corporate Affairs at the DVLA, Stephen Attuh in an interview with Graphic Online explained that as part of the planned rollout of new vehicle license plates in 2026, the authority has decided that owners of all vehicles registered in Ghana before 2023 are to ensure that their details are migrated from the DVLA manual system to the authority’s digital platform.
Vehicle owners are therefore required to visit any DVLA office to ensure that their details are migrated onto the authority’s digital platform as soon as possible. This will enable such vehicle owners to acquire the new number plates when the necessary Parliamentary processes are complete for the rollout of the new process.
He explained that because vehicles registered before 2023 were manually done, the owners would have to be onboarded on the authority’s digital platform as a matter of necessity.
“Customers whose vehicles fall under this category need to visit any of our offices across the country to ensure that their manual registration files are migrated to the digital platform before we finally roll out the new licence plate system,” he said.
Mr Attuh stressed that vehicles that were not onboarded on the digital platform would not be able to acquire the new licence plate when the parliamentary processes were eventually completed for the initiative to take off.
Last year, the DVLA announced the introduction of new licence plates in 2026, which was expected to begin in January. The new system is to incorporate Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) embedded to allow for traceability.
However, on December 24, 2025, the DVLA Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Julius Neequaye Kotey, announced that the implementation of the policy had been suspended pending approval of the new process by Parliament.
He explained that the suspension of the policy became necessary because a proposed amendment to the Road Traffic Regulation, 2012 (L.I. 2180), which specifies the contents and format of vehicle number plates in the country, was still before Parliament and had not yet been approved.
Source: Timothy Ngnenbe
